Return to Front Burner

FROM THE "HOW TO BLOW $250,000" DEPARTMENT

Sigh. Why do they do it? Why on earth do they keep on doing it?! Perfectly nice people lapse into media dementia and decide, "Hey, I have no clue what I'm doing, but I'm going to start new publication!" A stellar example arrived on our lawn yesterday called Dallas Women's Journal, a 32-page newspaper tabloid full of embarrassing advertorial that manages to break almost every modern publishing dictum. It's so bad that it doesn't even merit the time investment for a constructive criticism, and yet I feel compelled to offer it up as a warning to future generations of would-be publishers who find themselves similarly smitten. Be afraid, be very afraid.

What follows, class, is a list of publishing "Don'ts" that the good folks at Dallas Women's Journal have seen fit to ignore.

1. Don't stamp the word "FREE" on one corner of the front page, then tell readers that the paper is "priceless" on the other corner, and then ask them to pay $24.00 for a six-issue subscription on page 2.

2. Don't expect that anyone besides your mother — and possibly not even her if she is thinking clearly — will pay you $4 per issue for a newsprint product. The Sunday New York Times is the only paper in the world with that distinction.

3. Don't print the Staff Box in huge type on page 3 if every member of your staff is either you, your relative, or your partner's relative.

4. Don't say things like Introducing Park Cities Dental Associates when in fact those two guys have been prominent dentists for 25 years.

5. Don't let the publisher write anything without it being edited. For example, under the huge headline, "Welcome to the Premier Issue of The Dallas Women's Journal," don't write the lead, "Welcome to the premier issue of The Dallas Women's Journal. .... The newspaper you are holding is our first issue." Oh, is it really?

6. Don't fill your first issue with crappy, 2 megapixel photos, many of which were doubtless stolen off the Internet.

7. Don't run an interminable article on "Uterine Fibroids" without at least stealing some crappy 2 megapixel photos off the internet to break up an entire page of single-spaced copy.

8. Don't fill up pages and pages of perfectly good newsprint with giant copies of Academy Awards ballots (Wow! Is that happening?) cookbook covers, recipes, etc. God spent a lot of time making trees. Please don't waste them.

9. Don't spend an entire page giving us "Testimonials" when you've already told everyone that this is your first issue. Were these, ahem, "borrowed" from another sister publication?

10. Don't plan to celebrate your second anniversary. I beg you to stop what you're doing and give that unused capital to The Salvation Army. Then you really will be helping those in need!

Reid Slaughter · February 16, 2006 12:46 PM